Category Archives: Entrepreneur

Let’s say you own your own business. You’re toiling away, working harder than you ever have because it’s something you LOVE–this business is your passion. But you feel yourself getting distracted; you sense the urge to cut and run. What do you do? Do you give in and find something else that isn’t quite as time consuming or difficult-or-do you stick it out and make this potentially the best endeavor you’ve ever sought out?

Three words comes to mind: don’t give up.

You can have as much passion as any entrepreneur ever has; but if you don’t couple your passion with commitment, you’ll never see the results you hoped for. You’ve heard me say, “Be a dog with a bone.” It applies well here-it means don’t let go. Hold on to that bone as tightly as you can.

But HOW do you commit? It’s true-it’s easier said, than done. I’ll tell you how-but it’s up to you to apply it to your own life, and your own business.

Fear is a powerful driver in most people’s lives. It dictates what we take risks on, it makes us hold back, and it even hinders us from reaching our potential.

The fear of rejection is an emotion that many of us carry in our personal lives, but it can very easily seep into our professional one as well. We all come to that nexus point in our lives: we can do something, or we can do nothing. The fear of rejection almost held me back from promoting my book, The World’s Best Known Marketing Secret, because I was worried some book stores wouldn’t want to carry my book. But you know what I realized?

How often do you hit a slump in productivity? Worse, how often do you know what you should be doing, but then fail to do it regardless? It happens to the best of us, but the good news is that this is entirely avoidable.

Steve Levinson, PhD, and Chris Cooper recently released a book titled The Power to Get Things Done, and in it, they tackle how to turn your good intentions into actions and ultimately results.

This is one of those books that I stand behind, because I really believe that strong businesspeople can benefit from the tools to help follow through. As I said in my foreword for the book, the ability to turn good intentions into action is one of the most valuable assets that anyone who is serious about achieving their goals can have.

For me, the most impactful tips of the book are the keys to maintaining follow-through mastery. Everyone has done it at least once – you work hard to perfect your ability with something, you reach a level where you are satisfied, and then immediately stop practicing because you reached what you saw as the pinnacle. The thing with skills, though, is that you lose your ability when you stop practicing, or striving for better. What this book teaches is to always have goals in mind, and to always strive for your goals – both valuable suggestions to all business professionals.

Working in a startup is completely different than an established company, and comes with its own unique set of challenges. Not only do employees or founders of a startup need to be conscious of these different challenges, there are also keys to business that become even more important when you work with a startup.

Not only do you need to attend networking events, you should host them. When you attend an event, you will stick in the minds of those who were also in attendance. Ideally, you’ll make positive impresses on everyone you connect with. When you host an event, however, not only will people who you connect with at the event remember you, so will everyone you invited but couldn’t make it. While their impression of you won’t be as developed as those who attended, invitees who couldn’t make will remember that they were invited, and it will be easier to hit the ground running with them when you finally do make that connection.

The follow up is vital. A huge part of networking is that follow up, and letting those that you connect with know that their time is appreciated and that you want to continue developing that relationship. When you are working on starting your business, that follow up becomes a tool of its own. Your number one priority needs to be growing your business, gaining notoriety, and establishing new connections in your industry to help support that growth. Letting people know that you’re thinking of them, whether they are new contacts or old, helps to develop those relationships and can keep you moving forward.

You need to lose some ego. As business people, we’re smart. Not only that, but we need to be confident to succeed in business. What that doesn’t give you the right to do is to allow your ego to control your actions. Whatever reason you’re involved in a startup, whether you were looking to break into a different industry, or you’re on the latest of many new businesses, your reputation cannot carry you here. With a new venture, you need to develop a new name for yourself, so you cannot rely on what you have accomplished before. It can help you get part of the way, but you must lose the ego if you want to go far.

Have you ever worked with or owned a startup? What advice would you give to those just starting out? Let us know in the comments below!s

I recently got asked a really great question: Where do I get connected with people who can help me open a business?

Though there is evidence that business is currently on the rise and the economy is moving in a positive direction, the recent downturn in the economy prompted many people who found themselves unemployed to tap into their entrepreneurial spirit and consider starting their own business.

This begs the question above–are there efficient ways to get in touch with people who can help you start your own business?

The answer is yes, and here are my three recommendations:

1) Go through your contacts and talk to people you personally know who have started a business. Set an appointment. Let them know what you are doing and ask if they’d give you an hour of mentoring. If possible, meet with them in person. Show up with specific questions written out in advance. Send them the questions prior to the meeting so they have a good understanding of what kind of information you’re looking for. When you meet, focus on those questions, write down the answers, and stick to the time frame you promised. If the conversation goes well, ask if you can meet with them in the future. Follow this process with two or three people who have opened a business successfully. I guarantee you will find this to be very valuable.

2) Find a business coach who has experience with start-up businesses. Hire them to coach you through the process.

3) Read, read, read! There are a lot of books out there on opening a business. I have personally reviewed many of the books published by Entrepreneur Press on starting a business and they are excellent. Go to EntrepreneurPress.com to see some of them.

I strongly encourage anyone genuinely interested in starting their own business to pursue the endeavor. I have owned my own business for thirty years (that’s a picture of me at top right, when I first started my company, BNI, and was running it from my house and garage with only one other employee in the mid ’80s) and it continues to be an amazing and fulfilling journey. I don’t think I would ever go back to working for someone else.

In this video, I talk to Dave Buck, the owner of Coachville, about the importance of coaching skills for entrepreneurs.

Any successful entrepreneur can tell you that success depends on the quality of the results produced by the people on your team; and the best way to get better results from the people on your team is to coach them.

Watch the video now to find out what Dave thinks is one of the key skills for entrepreneurs to have when coaching their team and, also, how you can participate in an entire program to become a really powerful and effective coach.

Do you have any coaching tactics or strategies that you’ve found to be particularly effective in coaching your team/employees? If so, I’d really love to hear them. Please share your thoughts in the comment forum below. Thanks so much!

As this is a blog about business and networking, you may be wondering why some of my recent blogs have seemed to have a fairly apparent focus on health. I think the video I’m sharing with you today should answer that question for those of you who may wondering. Over the past couple of years, I have indeed become quite an advocate of the importance of health in regard to achieving success and there is good reason behind that.

In this short video, I talk with my good friend Lise Janelle, renowned success coach for companies & entrepreneurs across the world, about the role that vitality and health play in achieving ultimate productivity and success in business.

Lise offers three keys to achieving vitality and explains why it is important not only for business owners, but also for all of their employees, to focus on staying healthy and engaged in order for any given business to truly thrive.

Do you have certain habits and/or tactics you employ to stay healthy? Do you have specific ways of making sure you stay connected to your core values? I’m really interested in hearing your thoughts on this and, also, if you have questions pertaining to this topic, I highly encourage you to ask them! I am more than happy to do a future blog addressing your questions and to consult with Lise about them in order to get you the best answers possible.

Understanding your behavioral style and how it relates to your networking is extremely valuable. Most importantly, learning how to identify behavioral styles in others and learning how to adapt your own approach to those different styles can really make a difference in your referability.

Often times your behavioral style can be observed at a fairly young age. When I was 11 years old, I missed the bus to school one day. The school was only a little over two miles away and I had time, so I started walking.

Along the way I passed a gas station that had a small store attached to it. My eye caught some awesome looking lollipops – big, red, strawberry-flavored suckers. They only cost a nickel so I bought four or five of them and headed on to school. A friend saw what I had and asked if he could buy one. I said sure – for a dime. He bought it right away! That day I sold all the lollipops except the one I kept for myself . . . and I saw a great business opportunity.

The next day I walked to school again, this time buying a dozen lollipops. I sold them all before school let out for the day. I did this the next day, and the next . . . for almost a month, very happy with my margin and the money that I was starting to see growing from my lollipop enterprise.

That was my first experience in business, and it was obvious from that early time in my life that I was a “Go-Getter” behavioral style. I am pleased to share with you that I have just released a new book with co-authors Tony Alessandra (one of the world’s leading experts on behavioral profiles) and Dawn Lyons (probably the world’s leading expert on how behavioral profiles relate to referral marketing).

Stewart Emery (Success Built to Last) was over my house a few months ago. At breakfast one morning he told me about an interview he did with a well-known billionaire in the computer industry. The billionaire shared an intriguing story with Stewart about an experience he’d had when the senior executives of a company interested in purchasing his company visited his office to discuss the possible purchase.

Stewart Emery

At lunch, the billionaire told the senior executives of the company he was negotiating with that he was going to take them to the Executive Dining Room. They followed him to the dining room which was very nice but not extravagant. But that wasn’t the big surprise. The surprise was that the dining room had a buffet line. Moreover, the billionaire walked up to the buffet line, picked up a tray, and stood in line behind everyone else. The executives looked around the room as it filled up and they realized that this room was not an “executive dining room” but was the company dining room. The boss stood there in line with all the employees. He spoke to everyone. No one was afraid to talk to him. In my opinion, he didn’t lead by being above them; he led by being among them. Stewart told me that the billionaire said the management team was surprised by the fact that he and all the executives ate with all the employees. One of them commented that this would have to change. For the boss, it was a test. This was not the kind of company that he wanted to sell his business to. The negotiation ended that day.

Companies have a choice. They can move toward exclusivity in their organizational culture or they can strive, commit, honor, and embrace inclusivity in their organizational culture.

Sometimes when people meet me, they say that they are surprised that I am approachable. I find that interesting. I think they feel this way because sometimes we, as leaders, act in a way that people perceive as unapproachable. We act “better than” to other people. I believe people should be surprised when a leader is unapproachable, not when they are approachable. The problem is that we live in a world where success sometimes creates a sense of separation (with both the organizational leaders and others). One of the key things to embrace in a successful company is the sense that the boss, the owner, the senior executive(s) are, in fact, approachable.

What are your thoughts on this matter? Please feel free to share any relevant stories and experiences you may have.

This short, 11-minute video, sponsored by the Referral Institute, explains how the week of February 4th-8th, 2013 will bring about great opportunities for businesspeople around the world and increase worldwide awareness about the powerful benefits of business networking.

2013 will mark the 7th annual celebration of International Networking Week which is now recognized by many countries across the globe, with thousands of events being held during the week. One of the main goals of the week is to help businesspeople everywhere build their networking skills and expand the opportunities within their reach. In the video, my “Room Full of Referrals” co-authors (Tony Alessandra and Dawn Lyons) offer some very valuable pointers on understanding behavioral profiles in a networking context and where to focus your efforts in order to make the most of International Networking Week.

Take a few minutes to watch the video and share with us here on the blog what you learned.